Why is it that at the beginning of the New Year, when you take down all the Christmas decorations, although you did a Christmas clean before hand, everywhere looks used, slightly grubby, sad and bare? Putting the Christmas decorations away is always a long slow haul, I think because there is not the excitement you experience when you are putting them up, the excitement that Christmas is imminent. I have learnt with age that it is worth taping them into boxes properly so that there is no heartbreak with broken treasures when you open the boxes up the next year. Thinking about what I said before about things looking sad and bare, add another project to my list, this is, obviously, the time of year, to jiggle belongings around a bit and move old favourites to new places.
I have already had thoughts about some bamboo shelving in the bathroom that I think now needs to be painted white. Also I have plants in the bathroom that have thrived so well that it is almost like having a bath in the jungle, in fact, one of the plant's leaves, the castor oil plant, actually dips its leaves in the bath water. It freaks poor Sweetpea out, when she is at home, I think she expects snakes and things to slither down it. There are three plants, I have problems with two large ferns and the said castor oil plant, the only room they now fit in comfortably is the bathroom and they are starting to out grow that. I wonder if I could split them and make six plants instead of three, anyone think that is a possibility, I mean I split my garden plants?
I did buy two beautiful stripey cotton rugs, in the January sales, to go in the bathroom, when I have sorted out the plants and painted the bamboo. Top of the house list is another, work surface in the kitchen either counter or table and throughout the house more bookshelves. Well that is what I aiming for homewise this year.
I started my brand new diary and journal last night, and immediately made a splodge and an error, on the first page, I was really cross and got a bit control freakery over it, but decided I couldn't do anything about the error in the diary except cross it out, and my journal is bound so beautifully, I simply wouldn't like to try to tear a page out. So first lesson of new year, errors and splodges are not wrong, just part of life. My diary and journal are both compact, but perfectly formed, made by a firm I have never heard of before called Paperblanks, both have different vintage boots on the cover, I got one as a birthday present from my friend and she gave me the other as part of my Christmas present. I just love them. The journal will probably just be for writing and noting things in, so I think I will have to get another book for a larger visual journal for the year.
I will probably spend the rest of this week tiding up my artroom, getting putting away everything that managed to get dumped in there over the holidays, to make room for children, Christmas trees etc, and get things into some sort of order. By the weekend I should be able to start working in it again, and then, what fun, there are some exciting projects and swaps to be made this coming year, amongst other things.
After the stormiest New Year's Eve I have ever known, rain lashing against the windows, wind bending the trees right over, playing football with my garden furniture and even ripping my honeysuckle trellis off the wall, before howling down the chimney like a banshee. I did think we were in for a power cut the amount of flickering of lamps that was going on, but we lit the candles, and the incense, put the music on, got the wine and the nibbles and spent a lovely cozy New Years Eve, just ourselves, most of the time, not many people ventured out, just listening, talking, reading and me feeling extra snug with a throw over my knees. It was a really lovely evening. Today we have had blue skies and sunshine, more like a spring day, my garden plants are totally confused leaves are budding on my lilace and I noticed next doors willow tree has buds on, this isn't good this early in the year, I do begin to wonder how to go about planning my garden this year.
Things I am into at the moment:
This is a new spot that I will occasionally post on my site just saying what I am reading, listening to and watching etc.
I have just finished The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd, which I adored. At the moment I have not started another fiction book, as I am browsing my Christmas books, among which were a new copy of my favourite herb book by Jekka McVicar, my old one fell to pieces, Nigel Slater's Kitchen Diaries, Tessa Kiros Apples for Jam and Sarah Ban Breathnach, Romancing the Ordinary, which I have wanted for a long time. I still have a Sark book and an altered art book to arrive as they are coming from Amazon in the USA, and should be here at the end of the month. I am still listening to Loreena McKennitt's Christmas album, To drive the cold winter away, which I adore, I heard of her from Tara at Silver Apples of the Moon site. Also listening to the first Madeleine Peyroux album, I started with her latest, but got the first one for Christmas. I have been watching some dvds I bought really cheap in HMV in the sales. Pride and Prejudice, the one with Kiera Knightly and Donald Sutherland, [I have watched it twice, I love it] and Memoirs of a Geisha, which I adored. I still have a boxed set of musicals that my son gave me at Christmas to enjoy. I feel so pleased and lucky that I have so many good things to read, listen to and watch at the moment.
